This female revenge thriller starts out promisingly, but squanders its girl-power capital quicker than you can say “Rihanna.”
Cocktail waitress Shae (Danielle Panabaker) is treated badly by her older lover and then way worse by a preppy jerk she meets while clubbing with her intense co-worker Lu (Nicole LaLiberte). After Shae’s (off-camera) rape, Lu takes her on a man-slaughtering spree that widens to include any guy guilty of garden-variety sexism — in this case, all of them. The payback they exact on the chief offender, while creative, is off-puttingly gruesome.
Director-writer Austin Chick (“XX/XY”) lays the groundwork for a subversive female buddy flick, yet fails to make either woman particularly likable. And the evolution of one of them into a “Fatal Attraction”-style psychopath negates any social commentary, however ham-fisted, offered by prior events. When it comes to “Girls Against Boys,” it’s a draw — everyone loses.